Lebanon

Dennis B. Ross, former chief Middle East negotiator for Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton, says the Israeli Cabinet's decision to authorize a widening ground offensive in Lebanon might hasten diplomats at the UN Security Council to come up with a new resolution acceptable to the various parties.

The U.S. and French-led effort to draw up a Mideast cease-fire plan for UN Security Council consideration has fallen far short of the most basic consideration: winning the support of the two combatants.

Vali R. Nasr, a leading expert on Iran and Shiites, sees the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah as a way for Iran to demonstrate its ability to hold off any Israeli or U.S. military moves and pressure Washington to open wide-ranging normalization talks.

Haim Malka of the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) argues that Israel's lates war in Lebanon is the product of political inexperience on the part of Israel's current leadership.

As the fighting between Israel and Lebanon escalates into its third week, each side has its own definition of victory and its own plan for emerging from the crisis. Some experts say Hezbollah already has accomplished its goals, while Israel faces an uphill battle to reassert its military primacy in the region.

In a further sign that a cease-fire may be some way off in the Middle East, Israeli officials say over 200 rockets crashed into Israeli territory Wednesday, even as Israeli forces fought to consolidate a new security zone in southern Lebanon.

This report from Human Rights Watch documents what the organization describes as serious violations of international humanitarian law by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print.

This link is to a paper outlining the strategic framework for European assistance to Lebanon, as established before the outbreak of the recent conflict between Israel and Lebanon. The European Union has been a major donor to Lebanon in support of its attempts to build a democracy in the Middle East.

USIP argues that the environment in Lebanon remains unfavourable for a successful UN peacekeeping effort. USIP believes the peacekeeping force is too limited in capability, and that Israeli and US hopes for a forceful mission are likely to be disappointed unless there is a broader peace process.

After an Israeli air strike kills nearly sixty civilians in a Lebanese village, Israeli officials call a two-day halt to aerial attacks on Lebanon. But other fighting continues, and efforts to arrange a cease-fire and peacekeeping force fall victim to confusing signals from Washington and other diplomatic players.

Julia Choucair, an expert on Lebanon, says even though many Lebanese people and several Arab governments criticized Hezbollah for instigating the crisis with Israel, the Israeli air attacks, including the killing of many civilians, have worsened the already poor standing of the United States in the Arab world.

Israeli Vice Premier Shimon Peres says the deaths of nearly sixty Lebanese civilians in an Israeli air strike was a "mistake" of wartime. In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, he said Israel finds itself in a war with no clear end, and warned that Iran's regional ambitions must be reined in.

Martin S. Indyk, a former top U.S.policymaker on the Middle East, says it would be wrong to invite Iran and Syria, the major backers of Hezbollah, into negotiations to end the current fighting between Hezbollah and Israel.

Israel calls up reservists in preparation for a wider war as U.S., European, and Arab foreign ministers fail to agree on terms for a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Meanwhile, the killing continues in Lebanon and northern Israel.

This report from the International Crisis Group pieces together the current crisis in Israel, the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon and elsewhere, based on talks with officials and others, including Hamas and Hezbollah representatives. There are many dimensions to the explanation of why the capture of three soldiers has, so suddenly and so intensely, escalated at an extraordinary pace into a deep and widespread conflict: local ones like Hamas's struggle to govern and Hezbollah's desire to maintain its special status in Lebanon; regional ones, notably the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict, Syria's interests in Lebanon, and the growing Sunni-Shiite divide; and wider international ones, especially the confrontation between Washington and Tehran.

CFR Experts Guide

The Council on Foreign Relations' David Rockefeller Studies Program—CFR's "think tank"—is home to more than seventy full-time, adjunct, and visiting scholars and practitioners (called "fellows"). Their expertise covers the world's major regions as well as the critical issues shaping today's global agenda. Download the printable CFR Experts Guide.

New Council Special Reports

Campbell evaluates the implications of the Boko Haram insurgency and recommends that the United States support Nigerian efforts to address the drivers of Boko Haram, such as poverty and corruption, and to foster stronger ties with Nigerian civil society.

Koblentz argues that the United States should work with other nuclear-armed states to manage threats to nuclear stability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term.

The authors argue that it is essential to begin working now to expand and establish rules and norms governing armed drones, thereby creating standards of behavior that other countries will be more likely to follow.

2014 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2014 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »